List of forms of word play
This is a list of techniques used in word play. Technique that involve the phonetic values of words * Mondegreen: a mishearing (usually unintentional) of a phrase as a homophone or near-homophone that has as a result acquired a new meaning. The term is often used to refer specifically to mishearings of song lyrics (cf. soramimi). * Onomatopoeia: a word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing * Rhyme: a repetition of identical or similar sounds in two or more different words ** Alliteration: matching consonants sounds at the beginning of words ** Assonance: matching vowels ** Consonance: matching consonants ** Holorime: a rhyme that encompasses an entire line or phrase * Spoonerism: a switch of two sounds in two different words (cf. sananmuunnos) Techniques that involve the ''letters'' * Acronym: abbreviations formed by combining the initial components in a phrase or name ** RAS syndrome: repetition of a word by using it both as a word alone and as a part of the acronym ** Recursive acronym: an acronym that has the acronym itself as one of its components * Acrostic: a writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line can be put together to spell out another message ** Mesostic: a writing in which a vertical phrase intersects lines of horizontal text ** Word square: a series of letters arranged in the form of a square that could be read both vertically and horizontally * Backronym: a phrase back-formed by treating a word that is originally not an initialism or acronym as one ** Replacement backronym: a phrase back-formed from an existing initialism or acronym that is originally an abbreviation with another meaning ** Apronym: a backronym in which the word itself is relevant to the associated phrase * Anagram: rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase ** Ambigram: a graphical figure that depicts a word in two or more directions ** Blanagram: rearranging the letters of a word or phrase and substituting one single letter to produce a new word or phrase ** Letter bank: using the letters from a certain word or phrase as many times as wanted to produce a new word or phrase ** Jumble: a kind of word game in which the solution of a puzzle is its anagram * Chronogram: a phrase or sentence in which some letters can be interpreted as numerals and rearranged to stand for a particular date * Lipogram: a writing in which certain letter is missing ** Univocalic: a type of poetry that uses only one vowel * Palindrome: a word or phrase that reads the same in either direction * Pangram: a sentence which uses every letter of the alphabet at least once Techniques that involve semantics and the ''choosing of words'' * Anglish: a writing using exclusively words of Germanic origin * Auto-antonym: a word that contains opposite meanings * Autogram: a sentence that describes itself * Malapropism: incorrect usage of a word by substituting a similar-sounding word with different meaning * Neologism: creating new words ** Portmanteau: a new word that fuses two words or morphemes ** Retronym: creating a new word to denote an old object or concept whose original name has come to be used for something else * Oxymoron: a combination of two contradictory terms * Pun: deliberately mixing two similar-sounding words * Slang: the use of informal words or expressions Techniques that involve the manipulation of ''the entire sentence or passage'' * Dog Latin * Language game: a system of manipulating spoken words to render them incomprehensible to the untrained ear ** Pig Latin ** Ubbi dubbi Techniques that involve the ''formation of a name'' * Ananym: a name with reversed letters of an existing name * Aptronym: a name that aptly represents a person or character * Charactonym: a name which suggests the personality traits of a fictional character * Eponym: applying a person's name to a place * Pseudonym: an artificial fictitious name, used as an alternative to one's legal name * Sobriquet: a popularized nickname Techniques that involves ''figure of speech'' * Dysphemism: intentionally using a word or phrase with a harsher tone over one with a more polite tone * Euphemism: intentionally using a word or phrase with a more polite tone over one with a harsher tone * Kenning: circumlocution used in Old Norse and Icelandic poetry * Paraprosdokian: a sentence whose latter part is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe the first * Verbification: a kind of derivation that turns words of other parts of speech into verbs Others * Aleatory * Analytic philosophy * Bushism * Constrained writing * Engrish * Homonym: words with same sounds and same spellings but with different meanings * Homograph: words with same spellings but with different meanings * Homophone: words with same sounds but with different meanings * Homophonic translation * Phonetic reversal * Rebus * Spanglish See also * Connotations * Contextual associations * Figure of speech * Lexical access * Lexical decision * Logology * Meaning * Word associations * Word game * Word meaning * Words (phonetic units) * Wit Category:Humor Category:Play